Are there any businesses that both have unions and grant employees equity? If so, can the employees transfer their equity to the union, perhaps in lieu of paying dues? I feel like it could be a good way to align incentives, but I'm not sure it's actually feasible in the US.
I suppose unions at public companies could always just buy the stock regardless of employee equity grants.
Wouldn‘t that be the opposite of aligning incentives? Unions want the workers to do well, stockholders want the company to do well. The company paying people less is better for stockholders, worse for employees obviously. So that seems like an awful idea.
How does that fix the issue? For every marginal dollar the workers would rather receive the entirety of that (through wages) than for that same dollar to be paid out as profit to shareholders, of which they'd only get a fraction.
I encourage you to read up on the history on unions. People on this site have this insane idea that $CORP=bad and $UNION=good. The truth is that neither party is inherent good/bad. Unions can and have done plenty of shady things. Union leadership can be primarily self-interested (just like any other individuals).
Employees with equity shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing!
I suppose unions at public companies could always just buy the stock regardless of employee equity grants.